Intention Matters

I recently read an important study on company scale up, a meta-analysis of many studies in a variety of countries, looking at the relationship between entrepreneurs’ expectations for their upcoming growth, and their actual growth. The conclusion: actual subsequent growth (revenues) is predicted by intentions or expectations of growth, in particular when the motivation of the entrepreneurs is to generate wealth, that is, be successful as a business (as opposed to becoming one’s own boss). In other words, those entrepreneurs who want to and expect to scale up, have a higher probability of scaling up.

We just happened to have completed a mid-term survey of our current Scalers in the Scalerator program. To remind you, these are 18 companies with combined revenues of about $100 million, and median revenues of about $5 million. They started Scalerator3 in October 2015, and will finish in March 2016. 33% of the Scalers expect to have increased their run rate by 25% or higher by the end of the Scalerator. 72% expect to increase their run rate by 25% or more by the end of 2016. The qualitative feedback we are getting from the Scalers is that the program is exceptionally helpful.

Given the fact that expectations of scale up predict actual scale up, this is an indication that Scale Up Milwaukee continues to be on the right track.